Our Live Oak Wildlife Sanctuary & Tortoise Preserve

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 THE LIVE OAK WILDLIFE SANCTUARY & TORTOISE PRESERVE IS A REALITY

It's official, the 110 acre site to be known as our Live Oak Wildlife Sanctuary & Tortoise Preserve in Suwannee County, FL was purchased by a donor group on March 14th, 2025.  The donor bought the land with their own money and saved TTC from having to spend the $660,000 to acquire the land for protection. Once they take the land through the process of becoming an established gopher tortoise recipient site by the FWC, we have a written agreement it will be donated to The Tortoise Conservancy for our stewardship. They have committed to donating the entire 110 acres to us.  Over the next few years, the goal is for it to become home to over 220 gopher tortoises along with the 350 other wildlife species the site will support because of this Keystone Species being there.  The group will first be establishing a Conservation Easement with FWC on the site, which will permanently protect the land from any future development. After they have transformed the entire 110 acres of land into a permanent gopher tortoise sanctuary and all tortoises to be received on the site are safely on site, the group will has agree to donate the land itself to us for free. This form of land acquisition for the Conservancy is known as Method Three of the three ways we look to acquire land to reach our goal of 10,000+ acres by 2035. 

 

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To be absolutely clear, The Tortoise Conservancy will not be spending any money on this site until it has been donated to us and we own it completely.

However, beginning Summer 2025 we will continue to raise funds needed for when we do own the land to acquire the structures on the site to be uses as the Suwannee County Wildlife Education Center (SCWEC). We will also need to secure the perimeter with fencing, create the Nature Trails, install benches and signs along the trail, as well as install multiple cameras near active gopher tortoise burrows for our members to be able to access from our website whenever they want and check out the wildlife in action. These funds will be set aside in the SCWEC Fund until we own the land, but will be designated for these improvements to the Sanctuary once we fully own the site.

The Live Oak Wildlife Sanctuary & Tortoise Preserve, along with the nature trails and the SCWEC facilities will be maintained in perpetuity by a trust account set up for that purpose by the Conservancy so the land will remain in this natural state as an educational facility for centuries to come. 

 

WHY AND HOW WE DO WHAT WE DO AT TTC: